Possibly the final post

It’s not over yet

With only about a week left here in Senegal, I thought my cultural experiences, and therefore my blog, were just about over… and then tonight happened. When my sister asked if I wanted to go to the “faux lions” ceremony, I had no idea what I was getting into. We walked over to Wakaam village (I don’t know if I already explained this- it’s the old, more traditional part of Wakaam that still considers itself a village rather than part of Dakar. I live in the newer part only a couple blocks away) and came to a clearing blocked off by two ratty sheets. In front was a woman selling tickets for 200 CFA. After buying the tickets, my sister looked worriedly at my big open pocket with my ticket stuffed inside. “You better hold on tight to that,” she said. I thought she might be referring to my cell phone as I had no idea why it would be important to keep track of a little flimsy square of pink paper. As the little clearing began to fill up (mainly with children and a few young adults), the drummers began to play. Finally several muscular men covered in animal skins and colorful fringe, with elaborately painted faces, danced into the center (the “lions”). Some were carrying sticks and another had a thick, dangerous looking rope. The next thing I new, the man with the rope had a thirteen-year-old girl held roughly by her shirt. He dragged her around while she screamed and tried to escape. He forced her to squat in the middle of the circle. I asked Bineta what was going to happen. “He’s going to beat her,” she said with a smile on her face. At that point I really wanted to leave. What kind of sadistic people would want to sit and watch children get publicly beaten with a rope by fake lions? I was soon informed that her crime was watching the ceremony without a ticket. When the lion looked away, she started to make a run for it and he chased her all the way down the street and through the neighborhoods. After a few minutes, I got an idea of what was really going on.

Basically, these lion guys hop around threateningly and check everyone in the audience’s tickets. If you don’t have one, they drag you kicking and screaming to the middle and make you crouch around a plastic tub of water. While at this tub, you are lightly smacked around by all of the lions. Sometimes they rub mud on your face or pour the water all over you until someone from the audience comes and buys you a ticket. With small children, they grab them and swing them through the air every which way. I was threatened by several lions, being a toubab at all, and had to quickly pull my ticket out and unfold it for them to see. You might not believe me, but it actually is terrifying to have a grown, painted man growling rather convincingly merely inches from your face. The children were all petrified. Several of them hid their faces in my lap or tried to hide behind me and many began to cry. This is what they do for fun!

I thought that all of this was just an introduction to the real show, but that was pretty much it for about an hour. Once, one of the lions even jumped up onto a nearby rooftop to catch the ticket-less kids trying to get a free show. When they ran out of spectators without tickets, they ran past the curtains to the neighborhood beyond and stole children at random from the street. Outside was a group of mischievous boys with a long plastic tube creating a barrier to trap other kids inside so that they would be in the path of the lions when they came. At one point, a man with stilts came in and started galloping around the ring. It was an hour of complete insanity. Sometimes the lions would dance, stomping in a lion-like fashion, and were actually really good. But I think the real point of the show was the public humiliation.

To the American eye, this whole event could seem rather deranged and cruel, until you realize that it is all a game. If you look closely, you can see that many of the lions’ victims who are struggling and screaming are actually suppressing huge smiles and giggles. Except for the very young children (who are legitimately terrified), everyone is just playing along. No one is actually hit very hard. It reminds me a little of going to haunted houses in the US, how people are amused by their own fear. The children outside of the ceremony were actually scarier to me than the lions though. They were all riled up and hyper. Several of them hit me on the head while I passed and I would have hit them back if I weren’t so disoriented by the craziness of the ceremony (friendly hitting is a large part of the culture here… in the US I would never hit a child, but here you almost have to sometimes or you just get taken advantage of). One kid was running around with a flaming stick and other kids were throwing dirt clods from a roof. Out in the soccer field, a fist fight almost broke out between one of the girls who had been a lion’s victim, and some boy from the audience before it was broken up. It was all in good spirits, but it was insanity all the same.

Adorable

I just gave a lot of my old clothes and things to my family in order to make my bags lighter. My sister was so excited by all of my American clothes. She picked out the two craziest-patterned things in the pile (that didn’t match at all) and put them on, with some of my shoes, so that she looked like my closet had blown up all over her. It was all too small for her, but she strutted around like an American princess. She washed herself in the complimentary packet of organic hand soap I had lying around and then kept making up excuses to “go to the boutique” and generally show off her new authentic American scent and attire. At knee-length, I think that skirt was the most scandalous thing she had ever worn in public as she kept tugging self-consciously at the bottom. She kept asking me what everything was: I had to explain that just because it had a picture of an insect on the top, the Burt’s Bees chapstick was not actually to prevent mosquitoes. The hardest to explain were the craft supplies I had left over. Crafts are completely superfluous and unheard of here. I never realized before how much a luxury this large part of my childhood was. Here kids get whipped for doodling in their notebooks because even paper is a luxury reserved for school. The camping-style dried peas my parents sent me as a joke became tonight’s dinner, and even my mom was walking around in one of my old shirts. It was such an entertaining evening.

Reflections

Time is winding down and I am finally finding myself able to be sad about leaving rather than merely excited. I have my finals during the next couple of days, followed by our re-entry orientation and farewell dinner. And then I will have an entire week to laze around and feel terribly emotional about absolutely everything before making the final flight back. I can’t tell you how many times I have conjured up all of your faces in my mind, anticipating every second of my return home, what I will do and say, how I will be different or the same. I no longer sleep soundly because my blood is pumping and my mind is racing, just like before every new adventure in my life. It’s odd that I’m considering my return to normal an adventure, but different is always exciting to me in some way.

At the same time, I know I will miss many things here. I will miss my host dad’s quirky lectures, my mom’s constant smile, and my sister’s sweet innocence (they keep telling me how much they will miss me and how worried they are that I won’t keep in touch). I will miss attractive boys professing their love to me (even though I don’t believe it for a second). I will miss greeting my aunties and my favorite beignet vendor in the streets every day on the way home from school. I will miss huge communal rice dishes and picking at fish with my hands. I will miss speaking Wolof and French all of the time. I will miss being so free of stress and never needing to be in a hurry. I will miss little shot glasses of hot sugary tea and my favorite blue and yellow flowery bed sheet.

Looking back on this experience, I can see that halfway through this year, I was the most depressed I have ever been. But I have also had some of the happiest, most rewarding, and most relaxed moments of my life. I have pushed and stretched almost all of my boundaries, and have come out all the stronger for it. I will always be grateful for this year in my life. I have learned so much, not only about Senegal or Africa, but about myself, about happiness and about humanity.

They tell us we will be depressed, frustrated, and emotional when we get back to the States and find that in many ways everyone there has changed too, and in many ways they haven’t. I think the experts are probably right, so I am asking for your patience and forgiveness in advance during what is bound to be a rocky transition from Adama Ndoye back to good old Katiana Jones. I love you all dearly and can hardly wait to be home again in beautiful Colorado. See you in only 11 days incha’allah!